Guillermo Del Toro Will Direct Two Movies Based on The Hobbit

It sounds like it's official: Guillermo Del Toro will direct back-to-back movies based on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit.

Principal photography is tentatively set for 2009. The two movies will hit theaters in 2010 and 2011, roughly around the time we first make contact with the aliens responsible for the giant black monolith seen on the moon and Jupiter.

New Line has budgeted each film at $150 million.

According to previous reports, the first movie will be based solely on The Hobbit, while the second will draw material from Tolkien's ancillary texts to link the action between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

Editorial: To be sure, having Peter Jackson back to direct these films would have been great, but I can't think of another director I'd rather see step in for him. What a wonderful choice. I also like how we'll be getting a different voice for this part of the story – a voice with some more experience in dealing with children's literature and storytelling.

Robert J. Peterson is a writer and web developer living in Los Angeles. A Tennessee native, he graduated from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. He’s written for newspapers and websites all over the country, including the Marin Independent Journal, the Telluride Daily Planet, CC2KOnline.com, Offscreen, and Geekscape.net. He co-hosts the podcasts Make It So and Hiram’s Lodge. He’s appeared as a pop-culture guru on the web talk shows Comics on Comics, The Fanbase Press Week In Review, Collider Heroes, ScreenJunkies TV Fights, and Fandom Planet. He’s the founder of California Coldblood Books.

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